New Napier Celebrates Reconstruction

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 98, 19 January 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

New Napier Celebrates Reconstruction

E=aN Napier there still remain tOl many traces of the havoc wrought in the great disaster of February 3, 1931. At' Gl’ the head of Dalton Street stand the ruins of St. Paul's ■fitj Presbyterian Church. its J-J bare brick walls and shattered tower outlined starkly against the green background of the' hill. On the site of the Church of England Cathedral may be seen the foundations of the big building, now serving to border an attractive wooden church that for some years to come will be the central place of worship in the diocese. On the hill near the hospital the site of the Nurses’ Home of 1 tragic memory is cleared and, for the time being, deserted. A circle of mosaic is all that remains of the entrance hall of the building, its inlaid, coloured stone ringed by ranklygrowing grass. Here and there through the town are scores of similar .spots where can be found mute reminders of man’s littleness and nature’s might. At Port Ahuriri, too, the slowlydisappearing trail of past destruction may be picked up. Portions of shattered wharves, tire ruins of big stores and the barrenness of land newly raised from the sea prove the severity with which Napier’s oldest suburb shared in the disaster. There and at Parke Island cemeteries add their pathetic quota of evidence. Though much repair work has been done, headstones still stand.askew or lie broken beside their graves. One may pause and visualise with a thrill almost of horror the scene that must have been enacted in those silent hallowed places on the morning of February 3, 1931 the toppling and crashing of scores of monuments, the heaving of the ground as if the Day of Judgment had come, and the prophecies of the Scriptures were being fulfilled in literal detail.

Sharp Contrast Provided. In contrast with all this stands the New Napier, trim, modern, and colourful. Here are buildings like pictures taken from the newest architectural journals of Europe and America, buildings made to withstand every type of earthquake shock within human ken, equipped with flashing fittings that represent the highest art of the designer, the stonemason, the potter, the glazier, the engineer, the electrician, and the woodworker. Here are widened and superbly fashioned streets, free from posts of projections, with banging verandas and footpaths of concrete that sweep gracefully round each curved corner. Here is colour, gay without being gaudy, lending the civic centre a refreshing, original touch, almost foreign to workaday New Zealand towns, conveying more an impression of sunny, Continental smartness. Yellows, blues, greens, and browns are some of the colours of Napier's new buildings, with sunny and golden shades of yellow striking a dominating note.

Factors in Reconstruction. ■ Four factors have made possible the reconstruction of Hawke’s Bay's chief centre —determination, organisation, finance and hard work. The community has had the supreme asset of citizens eager and able to plan wisely and thoughtfully, and to carry those plans into execution. Behind them has been a stability that no earthquake could break —a sane and sturdy’ prosperity that in years gone by earned for Napier s the name of being one of New Zealand’s soundest towns. In addition. Napier has benefited from and continues to enjoy a form of emergency civic administration, the success and popularity of which is one of the outstanding features of the reconstruction period. The commissioner system means in effect that the community, like a business, is controlled by a manager with a sort of honorary advisory board of citizens. It is not difficult foflnd residents who, in the light of the experience of the past year, advocate an indefinite continuation of this .‘state of affairs. How much the success of the experiment is due to the sys-

tern and how much to the character and ability of the men who have carried it into effect, is difficult to determine, but the fact remains that Napier, since the task of rehabilitation was begun, has progressed by leaps and bounds with an apparent degree of satisfaction to the majority of those concerned that is seldom achieved in local oolitics. From Day of Earthquake. Napier’s reconstruction dates from the day of the disaster itself. Hardly had the masonry of the shattered town ceased falling than steps were being taken to cope with the colossal task ahead. The Earthquake Control Committee, of which Mr. C. 0. Morse was chairman, was the principal emergency organisation which handled the work at the outset, though its activities might more properly be described as the restoration of essential services of various kinds rather than actual reconstruction.

Mr. Morse and his committees carried on for six weeks until the arrival of the commissioners Messrs. J. S. Barton and L. B. Campbell, who took over the control of the borough by a resolution of the Napier Council. It was doubtful whether, under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, powers could thus be handed to two outside administrators, but on April 28 the move was ratified by legislation with the passing of the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake Act. In the meantime the commissioners made a practice of dictating each day a closely written-up minute book containing every decision made. This in effect was a diary of the work of the commissioners, and at intervals the Borough Council was called together to lend its official approval to each move made. In July, 1931, representative citizens of Napier were formed into a body

CENTRE RETURNING TO PROSPERITY

Control of Civic Administration REMARKABLE WORK OF TWO YEARS IN REVIEW A new, a re-created centre has arisen in Hawke’s Bay. Napier, during the period of nearly two years since the Great Earthquake of February 3, 1931, has made a recovery that will be remembered by future generations as one of the proudest chapters of New Zealand’s history. The gigantic task of reconstructing a business area rocked and shattered, then ravaged by fire, is not yet complete in every detail, but the major work has been accomplished. Streets have been designed and reformed, essential services have been restored, and rows of new and beautiful buildings have been constructed. Upon the improved foundations of the material prosperity established in the past stands a centre that, in the attractive efficiency of its lay-out, the distinction of its architecture, and the modern completeness of its shops, hotels, public utilities, and civic amenities, will have few rivals in the Southern Hemisphere. The Napier of to-day—the city to be seen and admired by the thousands of visitors who will Hock to the coming New Napier Carnival—represents a final, silencing answer to the question that was asked repeatedly and doubtfully less than two years ago: Can the devastated centre recover? All uncertainty has now been removed. Physically and in morale and community of purpose Napier .has not only recovered but is reaching forward toward greater; heights. Materially she is recovering steadily, and far from being permanently weakened by the disaster, her resources, her wealth of land and scenic beauty, have been amazingly improved. The purpose of this publication is to indicate some of the directions in which these striking improvements have taken place, but no written words can convey the hopeful, vigorous spirit that pervades the New Napier, as it is proudly called. Something has happened amid the orderly chaos of reconstruction that is a lesson to all New Zealand. Depression, with its attendant evils, selfishness, petty worries, uncertainty and despair, has been forgotten. An in- * spired atmosphere has prevailed, and in it a magnificently successful effort has been made. It has been said that Napier has been slow in the race to rehabilitate. There was ample reason for this, but whatever the cause, the effect has been all to the good. When a thriving town of upwards of 20,000 inhabitants is suddenly laid waste; when practically every form of organised service is smashed and ceases to function, even in a restricted way; when its archives and records are destroyed; when its very monetary system for the time being is blotted out of existence; then such a ruin cannot be restored in a month or a year, as can a smaller, less elaborate community organisation. The wonder is that the recovery of Napier has been so rapid and so complete. The carnival week, which will mark the opening of the New Napier, has been organised to celebrate that recovery. The citizens are looking forward and preparing hospitality for a record influx of visitors.. They are ready to point with pride to a restoration which, with the aid of sister communities, they have accomplished so strikingly.

that up to the present has acted with the Commissioners in the administration and rehabilitation of Napier. This was the Citizens’ Reconstruction Committee, an advisory group having no official standing bur fulfilling a most important function by providing the Commissioners with a cross-section of public opinion on which to base their actions. Thus, although the powers of the Commissioners in Napier are absolute, both administrators ..ave agreed to be assisted—in fact, have welcomed assistance —from an advisory board representing the business and professional interests of the community. Mr. M. S. Spence is chairman of tire Reconstruction Committee. lie is also the representative of the Napier accountants, president of the lied Cross Society, president of the Napier Chamber of Commerce, and chairman'

of the Napier Carnival Committee. The members ot' the committee and the bodies they represent are as follow: Messrs. L. Pickering (Napier Thirty Thousand Club), K. McLeay (Napier Chamber of Commerce), M. 11. Grant (Hawke’s Bay Law Society), T. M. Geddes, chairman of the Napier Harbour Board (Press of Napier), H. Anderson (Napier Business and Property Owners’ Association), A. 11. D. Mayne (Napier Borough Council), A. B. Hurst (Napier Town-Planning Committe). P IV. Peters ■ (Napier Retailers’ Association), J. A. L. Hay (Hawke's Bay branch of the New Zealand Institute of A-chiteetS) : also Dr. IV. D. Fitzgerald (medical profession) and Mr. R. M. Chadwick (lion, secretary). Value of Representation. At first, as is almost invariably the case in affairs of local politics, there was a certain amount of criticism, and the committee was charged with being that bete noir of critics, a “self-elected body.” Nevertheless it "epresented, and continues to represent very fairly, . the important interests of the town, and its members already have behind them a record of voluntary advisory work fully in keeping with the magnificent post-earthquake spirit of Napier. ' Only some of the outstanding achievements of the Commissioners and the Reconstruction Committee can be touched on here. To supply a detailed record covering the period of the past 18 months would require a substantial volume. Broadly speaking, however, the work may be divided into three interlocked phases: First, the clearing away of debris and the restoration of borough services of all descriptions: secondly, town planning and the supervision of reconstruction; thirdly, the general administration of the borough and its affairs, plus the planning, preparation, and supervision of present and future borough works. All this has meant the cramming of ten or perhaps twenty years of normal civic activities into one year. More- ! over, it has necessitated the tackling ef nnprecented difficulties arising from the i destruction of records, and the altera- i tion of the basis upon which past schemes were based. It has called for the handling of financial problems that had not been dreamed of in the Napier of two years and more ago. Many Difficulties Faced.

As is natural after such an unheaval of civic affairs, many difficulties have been brought to a head in a fashion that probably will react to the ultimate good of the borough. For example, Napier’s tramway system before the earthquake was losing £OOOO a year, half of which represented interest and sinking fund and the other half running losses. Accordingly the commissioners closed down the system. The tramcars are now locked in their shed, and souvenir domestic pokers have been fashioned ingeniously from small lengths of some of the overhead copper wire. Buses are now being run by private , enterprise on the former tramways routes, and it is generally considered ■ that it will be many years before the ' borough reverts to the electrical system. Much of the reconstruction work of the commissioners and the committee has been completed, the record extending from the winter of 1931 onward, and including sanitation, water supply, “ building, drainage, the provision of better equipment, and facilities for lighting. telephonic reticulation, fire-fight-ing. and’ a dozen and one minor community services. “We are not merely replacing what was there before, but have been planning with an eye to the future,” Mr. Barton told a “Dominion" representative. thus putting in a nutshell the policy lie and his colleague, and his volunteer helpers have so successfully put into operation. In a report specially prepared for “The Dominion's” New Napier Num- : her. Mr. Barton has reviewed in broad,; outline the progress made up to thee end of the year.